Overcoming inertia

[crenfro]

Hello.

I’m having troubles getting started with my next projects. I need to clean the house, I have a pile of sewing projects, I need to start working out. Right now I’m about to start a job in about a week or so and I just finished up a degree. I have a mental illness with depression, anxiety, & PTSD.

Please share your experience! All experiences are welcome, provided they’re charitable and without criticism.

 

[Elizabeth3]

It sounds like you have a lot on your plate all at once. I’d focus the month on January on getting used to your new job and routine that will flow from that. Make sure you keep up on laundry so you have your clothes ready for work each day, the night before.
Figure out what you will do for meals during work and if you are taking your own, start a routine of planning your meals, shopping for what you need and packing your lunch the evening before.
Make sure your bed is made every morning and anything that shouldn’t be on it is cleared away. That way you are facilitating good sleep to keep up with the demands of your job.
Do your dishes, wipe down your tables and counters, sweep your kitchen floor every day.

Focus on the above the first 4 -6 weeks (because it’s not small potatoes) before worrying about tackling a workout plan, more extensive deep cleaning or sewing projects. Do you enjoy sewing? Is it a hobby? If it’s something that brings you joy, by all means keep the hobby. If you are burdening yourself with it unnecessarily, I’d consider dropping it.

Once you have a new work routine and a home routine that supports it, then see where you can add working out and give that a try for another 4-6 weeks to work out the bugs and get a habit established.

By then, spring will be here and you can work out a plan to maybe do some deeper cleaning (perhaps just an hour or two) on days off work. I’d work on this all spring and summer.

As for the sewing, if you enjoy it, then make it part of your unwind time in the evening and spend 15 min. to an hour a few nights a week working on it. If you don’t enjoy it, drop it.

 

[Lee1]

If I have many things to do I try to prioritise and reduce tasks to small easily accomplished chunks. I expect if you’ve just finished a degree you’ll know how to do this already so that possibly isn’t a problem for you.

Procrastination? I must say I have seldom put off eating a fresh cream chocolate eclair. I’m saying if you really like something you might tend to do it, chores or onerous things we might put off. So it might make sense to do things we like, or even do things we don’t like with the promise to self that afterwards we will …eat an eclair. Or reward ourselves by doing something less fattening we might see as a treat. Your call there. Obviously there is a reward in doing onerous things well and in a timely fashion from both a practical and spiritual viewpoint, but it’s an objective thing.

As for mental illness, I assume you already have help with that. I have found that deferring to God helps me a great deal. I try constantly to remember that God is with me and that my thoughts and words are known and also that I have recourse to spiritual guidance and help at all times. We are not alone, ever, never without a benevolent Holy Trinity and of course Our Lady and our guardian angel.

 

[TheLittleLady]

Sometimes it helps to call a cleaning service to come in one time and do a top to bottom clean of the house. This way you can begin fresh, it is easier for me to keep a place clean than to clean a messy place.

Congrats on a new job!!